Bill White explaining why inadequate treatment may be worse than no treatment:

What we know from primary medicine is that ineffective treatments (via placebo effects) or an inadequate dose of a potentially effective treatment (e.g., as in antibiotic treatment of bacterial infections) may temporarily suppress symptoms. Such treatments create the illusion of resumed health, but these brief symptom respites are often followed by the return of illness–often in a more severe and intractable form. This same principle operates within addiction treatment and recovery support services. Flawed service designs may temporarily suppress symptoms while leaving the primary disorder intact and primed for reactivation. But now the treated individual has three added burdens that further erode recovery capital. First, there is the self-perceived experience of failure and the increased passivity, hopelessness, helplessness, and dependency that flow from it. Second, there are the perceived failure and disgust from others and its accompanying loss of recovery support–losses often accompanied by greater enmeshment in cultures of addiction. Finally, there are the very real other consequences of “failed treatment,” such as incarceration or job loss that inhibit future recovery initiation, community re-integration and quality of life.

The personal and social costs of ineffective treatment are immense. If we as a society and as a profession want to truly give people with severe and complex addictions “a chance,” then we have a responsibility to provide systems of care and continued support that speed and facilitate recovery initiation, buttress ongoing recovery maintenance, enhance quality of personal and family life in long-term recovery, and provide the community space (physical, psychological, social and spiritual) where recovery and sustained health can flourish. Anything less is a set-up for failure.